Explainer Videos

Can you tell your company’s story effectively in 90 seconds?

No matter how slick your pitch, trying to communicate quickly and simply is difficult. Because you don’t actually have 90 seconds. You’ve got 8 seconds, which is how long you have to grab, and keep, someone’s attention online. By 10 seconds they need to know what they’re seeing and why, or they’re gone. An explainer video benefits your website by telling a story that quickly connects with your customers. It entertains them while educating them about your product or services. And of course, you can promote it to your social media channels to reach a larger audience. But this is just the beginning!

Explainer Videos make people buy

Studies show that adding a video about a product or services to a website is highly influential in the purchasing decision. Statistics vary from 73% to 144% depending on the particular survey, but the results always show video has a positive effect on sales.

Explaining your offering in a concise, fun and informative way is obviously a winner!

Explainer Videos are far more shareable

Usurv surveyed 1,000 adults in the UK and discovered that consumers are more likely to share (39%), comment (36%) and ‘like’ (56%) an online video than they are a text article. Further, more respondents said they engaged in these ways with online video more than with online articles.

Video reaches Executives

Video is becoming a critical information source for senior executives. More than 80% said they are watching more online video today than they were a year ago

Senior executives are also turning to video more frequently. Three-quarters (75%) of executives surveyed said they watch work-related videos on business-related websites at least weekly; more than half (52%) watch work-related videos on YouTube at least weekly

Work-related video can drive senior executives to take action. Overall, 65% have visited a vendor’s website after watching a video. Younger executives, however, may be more fully engaged with this type of media, and appear more likely to make a purchase, call a vendor, or respond to an ad.

The social element of online video is strong in the executive suite. More than half of senior executives share videos with colleagues at least weekly, and receive work-related videos as often. Younger executives appear very willing to share and view videos using social media.

So if you’re like our client WarwickNet and you’re targeting decision makers in a large organisation, a whiteboard explainer should definitely be a tool in your kit.

Videos increases time on page

When an enticing video is available above the fold on your home page, it increases the average time your customers spend there. They’ll give your video a few seconds to see if it captures their interest (and we can help you make one that does!) before scanning the rest of the page. Wistia did some data-crunching and discovered that people spent on average 2.6x more time on pages with video than those without. Since time spent on a page is one of Google’s key metrics, this can only help your site’s rankings.

If you’re going to have a video with a play option, our tip is to make sure the video thumbnail is enticing. The thumbnail should also be designed with the position it will appear within your website. If you have an autoplay video, make sure the sound is off – no one likes being blasted out on a first click – but make sure the unmute button is clearly visible.

Captions or Subtitles Improve SEO

Discovery Digital Networks added subtitles to 125 of 334 videos published between January, 2013 and April, 2014. They then tracked the performance of those transcribed videos against the remaining 209 uncaptioned videos. They found an overall increase of 7.32% in views for captioned videos.

Taking this a step further, they wanted to confirm this increase was influenced by the closed caption files being indexed by YouTube’s search engine. So they searched for a phrase in the transcript of the video that did not appear in the video title, description, or tags. They discovered their videos ranked highly for that search string, confirming that YouTube indexes closed captions and factors them into search rank.

Subtitles make your video accessible to deaf or hard of hearing viewers, as well as those for whom English is a second language. Google rewards this kind of content with a higher ranking.

Also, with more people watching video on a device with the sound turned off, it makes sense to subtitle.

Create clearer Calls To Action

Your video delivers a visual and audio call to action that your customers won’t miss, and different versions can point them to specific actions. For example, for one company we created a YouTube version where the CTA directed people to the website, while another version on their homepage suggested people signed up to their mailing list. We even added an arrow, showing where on the screen they would find the sign up box!

Ready to harness Explainer Video Benefits for your company?

We can help you create an explainer video that will win you new business.